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Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard[4] which carries north and southbound traffic in the borough of Manhattan, and is also a wide one-way pair in the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenue to the east. Park Avenue's entire length was formerly called Fourth Avenue; the title still applies below 14th Street.[5] Meanwhile, the section between 14th and 17th Street is called Union Square East, and between 17th and 32nd Streets, the name Park Avenue South is used. In the Bronx, Park Avenue runs in several segments between the Major Deegan Expressway and Fordham Road.[6]
Park Avenue was originally known as Fourth Avenue and carried the tracks of the New York and Harlem Railroad starting in the 1830s.[7] The railroad originally ran through an open cut through Murray Hill, which was covered with grates and grass between 34th and 40th Street in the early 1850s. A section of this "park" was later renamed Park Avenue in 1860, which was afterwards applied to the area leading up to 42nd Street.[8] When Grand Central Depot was opened in the 1870s, the railroad tracks between 56th and 93rd Streets were sunk out of sight and, in 1888, Park Avenue was extended to north of Grand Central.[9]
In 1936 the elevated Park Avenue Viaduct was built around the station to allow automobile traffic to pass unimpeded. In October 1937, a part of the Murray Hill Tunnel was reopened for road traffic. Efforts to promote a Grand Park Avenue Expressway to Grand Concourse in the Bronx were unavailing.[10]
A tradition was introduced in 1945 as a memorial to American soldiers killed in action, whereby Christmas trees are placed in the median section each December.[11]
On May 5, 1959, the New York City Council voted 20–1 to change the name of Fourth Avenue between 17th and 32nd Streets to Park Avenue South.[12] In 1963, the Pan Am Building, straddling Park Avenue atop Grand Central Terminal, was built between the automotive viaducts.
On March 12, 2014, two apartment buildings near 116th Street, 1644 and 1646 Park Avenue, were destroyed in a gas explosion. At least eight people are known to have died and many more are missing.[13]
The road that becomes Park Avenue originates as the Bowery. From Cooper Square at 8th Street to Union Square at 14th Street, it is known as Fourth Avenue, a 70-foot-wide (21 m) road carrying northbound traffic. At 14th Street, it turns slightly northeast to align with other avenues drawn up in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. From 14th Street to 17th Street, it forms the eastern boundary of Union Square and is known as Union Square East; its southbound lanes merge with Broadway south of 15th Street, and the thoroughfare divides into two distinct portions in the one-block section between 14th and 15th Streets. From 17th Street to 32nd Street, it is known as Park Avenue South. Above 32nd Street, for the remainder of its distance, it is known as Park Avenue, a 140-foot-wide boulevard.
Between 33rd Street and 40th Street, the left-hand northbound lane descends into the Murray Hill Tunnel. Immediately across from 40th Street, the center lanes of Park Avenue rise onto an elevated structure that goes around Grand Central Terminal and the MetLife Building (formerly the PanAm Building), carrying each direction of traffic on opposite sides of the buildings. The bridge, one of two structures in Manhattan known as the Park Avenue Viaduct, returns to ground level at 46th Street after going through the Helmsley Building (also referred to as the New York Central Building or 230 Park Avenue). The IRT Lexington Avenue Line runs under this portion of the street. Once the line reaches Grand Central – 42nd Street, it shifts east to Lexington Avenue.
As Park Avenue enters 270 Park Avenue and 277 Park Avenue, UBS at 299 Park Avenue, Citigroup, Colgate-Palmolive, and MetLife at the MetLife Building. Prior to July 2010, the eleven intersections between 46th Street and 56th Street were without the city's usual pedestrian crossing signals and overhead gantry-mounted traffic lights because the railroad tunnel ceiling, which is also the street, was not thick enough for their poles' foundations. (These intersections did, however, have upright pole-mounted traffic lights prior to 2010, but there were no pedestrian signals. After 2010, standard gantry-mounted traffic lights and pedestrian "countdown" signals were installed.)[14][15]
From 47th to 97th Streets, Zoe Cruz, private equity investor Ronald O. Perelman, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Vera Wang, and others. James Cash Penney lived at 888 and Leonard Bernstein at 898.
At 97th Street, the tracks come above ground, rising onto the other Manhattan structure known as the Park Avenue Viaduct. The first street to pass under the viaduct is 102nd Street; from there to the Harlem River the railroad viaduct runs down the middle of Park Avenue. Park Avenue in Manhattan ends north of 132nd Street, with connections to the Harlem River Drive. The avenue is continued on the other side of the river in the Bronx by the street just east of the railroad.
The flowers and greenery in the median of Manhattan's Park Avenue are privately maintained, by the Fund for Park Avenue. The begonia was specifically chosen by the Fund's gardeners because there is no automatic watering system and the floral variety is resilient under hot sun rays.[17]
The following institutions are either headquartered or have significant business presences on Park Avenue:
In numerical order:
Henry P. Davison House, Percy Rivington Pyne House, Oliver D. Filley House and William Sloane House is one of the original house ensembles left on Park Avenue
The Adelaide L. Townsend Douglas House, currently the Guatemalan U.N. Mission at 57 Park Avenue, between East 37th and 38th Streets
10 Park Avenue, at the corner of East 34th Street
230 Park Avenue, the Helmsley Building
Notes
New York City, Democratic Party (United States), Manhattan, Queens, Westchester County, New York
The Bronx, Times Square, Columbus Circle, Broadway theatre, Fifth Avenue
Long Island, Queens, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Staten Island
Brooklyn, The Bronx, New York City, Queens, Staten Island
New York City, Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, Broadway (Manhattan), Park Avenue
The New York Times, New York City, Park Avenue, Grand Central Terminal, New York
American Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Broadway (Manhattan), Park Avenue, Vanderbilt family
New York City, Manhattan, New York Times, National Register of Historic Places, American Civil War
Broadway (Manhattan), Fifth Avenue (Manhattan), Manhattan, Park Avenue, Seventh Avenue (Manhattan)